A year-end night of magic in this Cuban hill town

Was Zulueta a place of memory or of myth? When a journalist returns to his ancestral home to find out, the fireworks cast a spell

Born in Cuba and raised in the cosmopolitan city of Havana,
journalist Enrique Fernandez moved with his family to the United
States when he was 13. Among his strongest childhood memories were
the annual family visits to Zulueta, ancestral home of both his
parents. In Zulueta, a small, self-sufficient rail town that
thrived during the turn-of-the-century sugar-hauling days, everyone
is a "cousin" and life is low-key. Except, that is, at New Year's,
when the whole town explodes in revelry. This year, Fernandez went
back to Zulueta, to see if Zulueta was real or inflated by his
memories.

Dividing into two historical camps for the revelries, the town
holds a competition that brings grown men to tears. Each side
builds an elaborate float for the big parade, followed by a
fireworks display designed to out-boom the other side. From the
moment that he joins the conga line weaving through town on the
morning of the festivities, Fernandez is carried, as though by a
magic spell, back to his own past.